Grin and Bear It
by Samayla
Summary: His mother always said a person could change the world with a smile. She maybe should have mentioned that it doesn't always change it for the better. A fill for the hobbit kink meme. Anon asked for: "Bofur is inappropriately cheerful or makes one too many unappreciated comment. Someone/more (orc or men) decide he needs to be taught how to hold his tongue."
1. Chapter 1

His mother always said a person could change the world with a smile. Fortune will call at the smiling door. Smiles breed smiles as frowns breed frowns, so sow your seeds with care. His mother had a million of them.

None can strike a smiling face.

Much as he'd wanted to, Bofur could never quite believe that last one. Still, it had seemed a nice enough sentiment, so he'd taken it right along with all the rest of his mother's proverbs as he'd grown up, until smiling and joking have become second nature. He knows it grates upon his companions' patience at times, especially when his optimism in the face of misfortune seems to draw even more trouble down upon their heads.

"Look back and smile on perils past."

"What was that?"

Bofur starts. He hadn't been aware he was speaking out loud. "Nothing, nothing," he assures the concerned bartender with a smile. "Just something my ma used to say." He raises his newly filled mug in thanks and turns to make his way back to his companions at their table. He skirts around the edge of the crowded room, careful to hold his drink high enough to avoid men's elbows. He deftly sidesteps one staggering drunk, only to run smack into another one at his other side.

"Apologies," Bofur splutters as the better part of two pints of ale runs off the flaps of his hat and through his braids and mustache. A smile confuses an approaching frown. He smiles warmly up at the man towering above him. "Ah, well, no harm done on this end. You alright, laddie?"

"Laddie?" the man demands. "Do I look like a 'laddie' to you, master halfwit?"

Bofur raises his hands in surrender and tries another smile. "No offense meant, sir," he says soothingly. "Just makin' sure all's well."

The man is unimpressed. If anything, Bofur's smile seems to make him angrier. "Are you as stupid as you are short?" He knocks Bofur's hat off. "Or is your bloody hat too tight? Does it look like all's well?" He gestures angrily to his sodden clothes.

One who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger. "Now, sir," Bofur reasons, "there's no cause to be sore over spilt ale." He smiles again. "I'll buy you a fresh one, and I'll near guarantee you'll have forgot all this by the bottom of it. What do you say?"

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. He smiles encouragingly, his hands still held out to his sides nonthreateningly. The man nods to somebody behind Bofur, presumably the barkeep. Bofur lets out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding and reaches for a pocket, where his coin purse is nestled.

Suddenly, his scarf is grabbed from behind and jerked tight, pulling Bofur off his feet. "I say we take you out back and knock that stupid smile off your face," the man growls, towering above him with a feral grin on his face as his friend hauls on the scarf.

Bofur scrabbles frantically at the fabric drawn tight around his throat. He is unable to breathe or call out for his friends as the two men drag him out of the tavern through a back door. Dark spots are filling his vision when the tension on the scarf is suddenly released. Bofur rolls to his side, coughing and gasping for air. His fingers are too uncoordinated by his recent brush with unconsciousness to unwind the scarf from around his neck.

He manages to make it up to one knee, and he sees the two men conferring across the alleyway. Before he is fully recovered, the pair seem to come to an agreement, and they approach, the man whose drink he'd spilled in the lead. "Now, listen, fellas," Bofur chokes out. "I didn't mean no harm or offense. Just tryin' to be friendly is all."

A swift kick to the stomach knocks Bofur onto his back in the wet alley and silences him. "And what makes you think I'd want to be friends with one of your sort, dwarf?" the man spits down at Bofur.

Bofur is still struggling to catch his breath from the kick when he feels the scarf go taut once more. He lets out a strangled cry and claws at the fabric again. The man's friend hauls up on the scarf, dragging Bofur to his feet and up against the wall of the tavern. Still he pulls higher. Panicked, Bofur scrabbles for purchase against the rough bricks of the wall.

Bofur feels the tiniest amount of slack return to the scarf as it is tied off to something above his head. He is left dangling and gaping like a fish on the end of a line. He quickly figures out that if he stands on the very tips of his toes, he can sneak in a tiny breath past the constricting fabric. He grips the length of the scarf above his head with one hand, the other preoccupied with clawing at his throat, and tries desperately to rip the fabric down and free himself.

The men stand before him, laughing now. "Where's your smart-ass smile now, laddie?" the man who'd had the drink jeers.

The friend pipes up. "Come on, laddie," he coos at Bofur. "What's wrong? Why don't you smile for us?" He pinches Bofur's cheeks like he is some stubborn dwarfling and arranges his face into a grotesque mockery of a smile.

Bofur growls and twists his head away as best he can. He gives up clawing at his neck for a moment in favor of clawing at his attackers. His fingernails leave red streaks across the friend's face, but then the first man is punching Bofur hard. His head knocks back into the bricks behind him, and stars explode in his vision. Blow after blow rains down upon him, and it feels as though his chest will burst for want of air. Eventually, the stars give way to black spots once again as his legs grow weak.

Words register dimly in Bofur's mind as he comes back to awareness. "...tied him too high."

"Too late now. He won't last long like that. Let's get out of here before someone sees."

Bofur wants to cry out to their retreating backs, wants them to come back and cut him down. All he can manage is a hoarse moan, too quiet even to his own ears. Tears of despair prick in his eyes as the shadows swallow up his attackers.

He closes his eyes for a moment and takes as deep a breath as he is able in an attempt to calm himself. Though the rest of his weapons had been left up in his room over the bar, he can still feel the familiar weight of the knife in his left boot. Now, if he can just reach it, he can cut himself free.

The first time he tries to lift his left foot up so he can reach it, his right foot slips dangerously, and for a moment, Bofur can get no air at all. When he regains his footing, his throat burns. He tries again after a moment, more carefully this time, but try as he might, he can't quite reach his boot. He carefully lowers his foot again and lets the tears fall.

His head aches fiercely. His calves are so tired from fighting his stiff boots to stand on tiptoe that his legs quake. Bofur knows the man had been right: he won't last long like this. Another surge of panic sends him scratching at the scarf-turned-noose again, heedless of the blood now soaking the cloth. His movements become sluggish and uncoordinated as a terrible ringing begins in his ears. Bofur's legs give out, and despite his best efforts, he cannot regain his stance to take the tension off the scarf. His eyelids begin to flutter, and he knows he will die in this alley, hanged for a spilled drink and a mistimed smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Bofur wakes with a gasp, coughing and choking, firmly convinced there will never be enough air to fill his starved lungs. He claws at his throat as though it will help matters, until someone grabs his wrists and pins them to rough cobbles at his sides.

"Easy, now," comes a voice from somewhere above him. Bofur's vision swims as the blackness recedes and gives way to tears. All he can make out of the image wavering above him is red – red torchlight and red hair.

"Gloin," Bofur tries to say, but all that comes out of his abused throat is a painful croak that sends him back to coughing.

"'S alright, lad," Gloin soothes. Bofur's vision begins to settle and resolve into the concerned countenance of his friend. "Don't try to speak. Just calm down and breathe. You're alright now." He rubs gentle circles into the backs of Bofur's hands as he speaks. "My brother should be along shortly, and he'll set you to rights. Ori went to fetch him after we found you. Sharp lad, Ori. Found your hat in the bar and knew something was amiss."

Bofur just nods weakly, grateful to his friends but too exhausted to do much about it.

He is still panting like he's just run up a mountain when Dori skids to a halt by his side, panting nearly as hard as Bofur. "We think we've found them," he gasps. "Two men scuttling about a few blocks over. They turned tail and ran at the mere sight of us. Bombur, Bifur, and Nori are bringing them back." He looks down on Bofur with pity and anger in his normally gentle eyes. "None too gently, I might add."

Bofur nods again, then shifts his gaze back to Gloin. He flexes the fingers of one hand to let the older dwarf know he'll be okay. There is no mistaking the uncertainty in Gloin's eyes as he slowly releases his hold on Bofur's right hand. Bofur resists the urge to bring his hand back up to his throat, and instead begins to sign in Iglishmek.

[Two men: brown no beard... gold beard. Two drunk. Gold wet. Brown cut face.]

Bofur raises his bloody fingers and mimes clawing his own face to illustrate, and Dori nods in understanding. "Yes. That's them," he answers. "We've got them."

Bofur slides his eyes closed, and he knows Gloin can feel him shaking. Properly interpreting his action, Gloin speaks. "Don't let them bring them 'round here," he says in a low voice that Bofur can barely hear. "Just take them to the guard post by the gate."

"Are you sure?" Dori asks. "With what's happened, we'd be well within our rights – "

Bofur cuts him off with a strangled-sounding cry as he tries to sit up. When both Dori and Gloin turn to him in alarm, he signs one word. [No.] Satisfied that his message is delivered to the two dwarves hovering over him, Bofur allows his head to drop back to the cobbles.

Dori starts to say something, perhaps to argue for retribution against the men, but Bofur is suddenly unable to hear over the rushing sound that fills his ears at the sight of his scarf dangling from a torch bracket a short distance away. It's as though the whole world stops. All he can see is the scrap of fabric waving innocently in the breeze, and it's as though that faint breeze has stolen all the air from his lungs once more. His throat and chest tighten, and it suddenly feels like his hands are covered in ants, crawling and biting their way across his skin.

"Bofur!" Gloin's voice reaches him as if from far away. "Breathe, lad," the dwarf yells, shaking Bofur, and he realizes he's sitting up. Bofur sucks in a breath. He releases it in a harsh sob, and suddenly he can't stop crying. Gloin pulls him to his chest, and Bofur buries his face in his thick beard, clinging to his coat like his life depends on it.

He can't get enough air into his lungs, and if he dies there will be no one to take care of Bombur and especially Bifur, and he doesn't want the men's deaths on his conscience, and he doesn't want his friends to get into trouble on his account, and he knows any delay in reaching their meeting in the Shire will be his fault now, and they might be too late and then Thorin and the others could die without their help, and the sobbing makes his throat burn and his chest ache terribly, and he's just so... bloody... tired...


	3. Chapter 3

"Ssh, ssh," the older dwarf soothes, stroking Bofur's hair and back like he does his son's when he wakes from a nightmare. "Do whatever you need to do," Gloin growls to Dori, who still hovers over the scene like an anxious mother hen. "Just get Bombur over here, and tell Oin to hurry, if you see him."

Bofur clings to Gloin, breathing in the comforting scent of metal and stone even after his sobbing breaks down into exhausted gasping, until a flurry of footsteps announces new arrivals. "Easy, lad," Gloin murmurs as he slowly pushes Bofur away to lay back down. This time, there is something soft beneath his head, and Bofur can't see the scarf behind him, even if part of him wants to see it and be reassured that it's far away from him now.

Bombur, Oin, and Ori crouch around him. "Back," the elderly healer is saying sternly to the others. "Back now and let him breathe." He looks to Bofur and probes his tender neck gently. "Can you speak?" he asks after a minute.

Bofur opens his mouth to try, but Gloin interjects. "Not well," he says. "Sets him to coughing something fierce."

The healer hums to himself thoughtfully and turns Bofur's head from side to side, checking the extent of the damage to his neck. Then he lifts his hands to inspect his bloodied fingers. Some of the nails have been torn or completely ripped off during his struggles to get free, and the healer clucks his tongue. "Well, lad, I won't be wrapping up your neck, though it probably needs it." Bofur sags in relief and nodded his gratitude. "But we'll need to bind up some of your fingers to keep infection away." He pauses thoughtfully. "They hurt you anywhere else?" he finally asks, clearly expecting the worst.

Bofur nods and fumbles at the ties on his shirt. Oin's hands catch his, and the old dwarf takes over, slowly and methodically uncovering Bofur's chest and abdomen. Bofur can tell from Ori's gasp and Bombur's low growl that it looks bad, but in comparison to the memory of crippling fear and pain from being unable to breathe, he hardly feels a thing.

After a few tense minutes of probing fingers exploring bruises, Oin sits back. "Looks bad," he announces, "but most of it's superficial. Perhaps a few bruised ribs, but nothing seems broken. It's your throat that worries me more than anything, lad." He turns to Bombur. "Let's get him inside and into bed. I'll mix up an ointment for his cuts and some honeyed tea to so he can sleep."

Bombur and Gloin help Bofur to his feet and back into the tavern, and Bofur keeps his head down so he won't have to see that cursed scarf again. He can hear Oin and Ori arguing about the relative merits of skullcap versus chamomile tea as they climb the stairs. Bofur is still dizzy and embarrassingly weak from his ordeal, but neither his brother nor his friend complain of the way he leans heavily on the pair of them.

Bombur takes over his brother's care once they reach the room they share with Bifur, and he is quick to get him into the bed. It is only when Bombur bundles a fourth blanket around him that Bofur realizes he's still shaking. He isn't particularly cold, though, so when his brother reaches for a fifth blanket, he puts a hand on his arm to stop him.

"What is it, Bofur?" Bombur asks in concern.

Bofur disentangles an arm from the nest of blankets to sign, [Warm.] He smiles his thanks, though he suspects by the look on Bombur's face that it comes as more of a grimace.

Bombur bustles about the room, mothering as he always does under stress, until a soft knock at the door draws his attention. It is Oin with the promised tea and medicine. Bofur sits patiently and sips his tea –skullcap and chamomile, a compromise between Oin and Ori, and horribly bitter – while Oin fusses and mutters over his injuries. He can tell the old healer is itching to wrap layer upon layer of bandages around his neck. He can see it in his eyes every time he glances up. Twice he starts to ask, and twice Bofur shakes his head resolutely. Even the idea of having something wrapped around his throat terrifies him and nearly reduces him to tears again.

Oin sighs. "Well, at least drink up, lad. It'll help you sleep pain-free." The healer departs, grumbling to himself about stubborn patients and the sons-of-orcs who put them under his care.  
After only a moment's indecision following Oin's departure, Bombur climbs up into the bed with Bofur and pulls him into his arms. They stay like that for some time, each just basking in the security of brotherhood. Eventually, when the moon outside the window has finally sunk beneath the sill, Bombur speaks. "When Ori found your hat, we feared the worst," he murmurs. "I don't think I've seen you without that hat in fifty years."

[New,] Bofur signs with a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. [Three new.]

Bombur blinks, then lets out a roar of laughter, one that Bofur can feel down in his own bones as it shakes the bed. "We always wondered."

[Don't tell axe-head.] It is the quickest way he knows to indicate Bifur in Iglishmek, but he can't help but join in his brother's laughter, even though it sets him to coughing. The robbed who smiles steals something from the thief. And Bofur can't help but notice that he feels better for this moment shared with his brother, and Bombur certainly seems happy to see his smile, however tired and strained it may be.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," comes a soft voice from the doorway of the tiny room.

It is Ori, and Bombur invites the young dwarf to come in. "What is it, Ori?" he asks, preoccupied with making sure Bofur catches his breath following his coughing fit. Over the lad's shoulder, Bofur can see Gloin peeking around the door jamb, his face a warring mask of disapproval and hope.

Ori shuffles his feet self-consciously, and he picks at something cradled in his hands for a moment before speaking. "It's just, well, I don't know if you'd want it, Mister Bofur, given what happened..." He trails off, staring quite obviously at Bofur's throat. While his scarf had been too soft to leave anything more than a bruise that night, Bofur's own fingers had not been so kind to his throat. Oin had declared that he'd likely be left with a tangle of scars from his frantic clawing and tearing.

[What is?] Bofur signs. Bombur translates upon seeing the young dwarf's confusion.

Ori looks positively terrified. He darts forward and deposits his little bundle in Bofur's lap. He retreats quickly to the doorway, obviously ready to make a hasty escape if need be. Bofur picks up the bundle gingerly and unwinds a beautiful knitted scarf with shaking hands. Bofur doesn't know what to do. Although this new scarf is lighter and much more colorful than the old one, the mere sight of it causes his heart rate to pick up and his hands to tingle. He balls his fists in the fabric, knuckles white, trying to keep his breathing under control. He is not choking, and he is not alone.

After a few tense moments, in which Bofur manages to keep from throwing anything or bursting into tears, Ori dares to come closer. "I know what you're thinking," Ori explains quickly, as though he can avert disaster if only he can get enough words out in time, "but look here." He lifts up a grey segment near the middle of the scarf, between blocks of orange and blue. For some reason Bofur can't immediately fathom, the section looks uncharacteristically ragged, even for something Ori must have cranked out at near lightning speed. "I made it in two pieces, just loosely knotted here, so if you were to pull on it," he gives it one sharp tug, "it'll come apart."

And to Bofur's amazement, it does. The scarf pulls apart cleanly into two segments. Ori bows his head over the pieces for a minute, and when he looks up again, the pieces have been joined back together as though they were never split. "I just thought, well, I've never seen you without your hat and scarf, and Dori's washing your hat for you, but I'd hate for you to miss your scarf at some point on our quest." Before the lad can get out anything more than a squeak of surprise, Bofur's arms are around him, and he is grinning like a fool at Ori's thoughtfulness.

Despite the tea and the fatigue, sleep eludes Bofur after Ori leaves. He spends the night curled against his brother's warmth and listening to his soft snores as he runs his hands over Ori's gift over and over again. Bifur does not return until the wee hours before dawn, and then he merely pokes his axe-studded face around the door for a moment before disappearing back into the hallway with Gloin.

Bofur realizes he has been waiting and holding off sleep for word on his attackers. Then he sees what a foolish notion it is to think three grown dwarves, armed and angry, might be in danger from two drunk men fleeing in the night. He can hear Dori squawking indignantly at Nori in the room next door, and as Bifur's low Khuzdul rumble and Gloin's murmurs on the other side of the door join Bombur's snores at his side, Bofur at last manages to close his eyes.

In the morning, as the company is gathering to continue their journey toward their meeting in the Shire, Bofur tries not to see the blood on Dori, Nori, and Bifur's clothes. [Safe,] Bifur signs at him as they mount their ponies. Bofur does not answer, and the two men who attacked him are never mentioned again.

By the time they reach the Shire, Bofur's cuts and bruises have healed, and his voice has returned, along with his smile. "Keep walking and keep smiling," his mother used to say. He decides she would be proud.


End file.
